He crawled on his knees, setting rocks in place to create a path to the adobe’s front door. In the fading sun, the well-defined muscles in his shoulders glided under his tanned skin. She didn’t care what he said—it wasn’t hard to imagine him as some woman’s husband. That he was a fine-looking man had never been in dispute. His gallantry had been the surprise.
The entire morning had slipped away before he finished turning the plot to her vegetable garden. To honor such a special patch of earth, she wrapped it in a ring of choice red rocks. With so much else to do, marking an empty patch of dirt seemed silly. But the special touch gave her a feeling of permanence, even if it was only an illusion. When Braddock followed her lead without having to be asked, her fantasy deepened.
Lorelei knew her contentment was based on make believe. But reality hadn’t been nearly as fulfilling. In her mother’s last year, Lorelei’s only hope had been her swift and quiet death.
Maybe that was why pretending Braddock was here for reasons other than taking her brother to jail came so easily. She let her gaze drift to his face, hoping something there would tell her he liked the fantasy as much as she. He stared back at her. She jerked her attention to the ground, wondering how long he’d watched her appreciating his heavily muscled physique.
With her eyes riveted to the task of patting down a mound of earth around the rosebush, she sensed him walking toward her as keenly as if she still studied him.
“What’s that?” He crouched before her.
She raised her head and couldn’t avoid glancing at his mouth. The memory of yesterday’s kiss made her cheeks burn all over again. “A rosebush.”
“It looks dead.”
“Well, it’s not. It’s hibernating.” Tenderly she picked at the end of one of the closely cropped limbs to assure herself it was still green in the middle. “It’ll come back next spring.”
He didn’t say anything, just stood and stretched. The slight pull around his mouth told her he didn’t believe her. The same way he hadn’t believed that any of the seeds she brought from home had a chance of surviving, but he had helped her without complaint. He was a funny man, and she still knew so little about him. She wondered if he truly knew himself.
“What’s your name?”
He studied the distant mountains. “Braddock.”
“I mean your Christian name.”
“Langston’s back. Looks like he’s getting ready for a long night.”
Lorelei followed Braddock’s gaze. The glow of a faraway fire gave her a surprising sense of comfort. Braddock wouldn’t leave. With the deputy marshal keeping a watchful eye and Braddock under her roof, she couldn’t feel alone. Lorelei didn’t think she could bear another string of lonely nights with nothing but the howl of wind and coyotes to keep her company.
The sun sank deeper behind the dark mountains, turning the sky a violent red. Lorelei piled more dirt at the rosebush’s base. Her efforts were unnecessary, but she didn’t want to finish the first thing that felt right since she had stepped off the stage in Arriba. Planting her mother’s rosebush was the only thing that had turned out as she had planned.
“What do your friends call you?”
With his back to the setting sun, his face was covered in shadows. “Braddock.”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or just being obstinate. “Braddock Braddock?”
“Braddock, sir.”
She picked up a clump of soft dirt and tossed it at him. “What’s the big secret about having a first name?”
He ducked and she swore she heard him laugh. “I think you’ve been in the sun too long, Miss Lorelei. Better get your delicate little self inside.”
“I don’t sound like that.”
“Pretty close.” He reached out his hand.
She took off her muddy gardening gloves and accepted his offer to haul her up. He jerked her to the left before she set her foot down.
“Watch out. Tarantula.”
A spider as big as a kitten reached a hairy arm out to her bare toe. She jumped and squealed at the same time. “Kill it!”
Braddock scooped the monster into his hand. The spider’s body covered Braddock’s palm and its legs stretched across his wrist and fingers. “Tarantulas are your friend. You want them in your garden.”
Lorelei backed up until the adobe wall stopped her. She flung her arm out to ward him off. She wasn’t the squeamish sort, but what he held was a freak of nature. Just when she thought she had grown accustomed to this place, some new strange thing appeared worse than the thing before.
“That beast is not my friend.”